


pushed far enough to believe this

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-19 03:47:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29744517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: Attempted conversations bizarrely felt like life rafts as the rest of the room spiraled out in indistict swirls of color and sound.
Relationships: Sybil Ramkin & Havelock Vetinari
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	pushed far enough to believe this

He had ended up being steered toward the center of the room. The Venturi ballroom was not unique enough to be especially memorable but the carpet incongruously fuzzed and shed and clung to everyone’s shoes.

Attempted conversations bizarrely felt like life rafts as the rest of the room spiraled out in indistict swirls of color and sound. In the smell of roasted meat were the brushstrokes of the twine that held it together while it was cooking. The flowers on tables clashed, a semitone apart. Sweat and perfume that had been applied too recently, the rustle of fabrics and the cacophony of voices and bodies and every strategic instinct saying to get to somewhere less exposed, right now.

Was it the lack of music? No wash to bind the composition together? It shouldn’t matter. He was in the center, at the inside, not pressing his face against the glass wondering whether to want to be let in. He could get so much done tonight. Change minds. Engraciate where necessary. But all he wanted to do was get away and put his head under a blanket and all he felt capable of doing was voicing inane agreement to Lady Rosabelle Chanain’s point about lights at the ends of docks. It was like looking at the world through a sheet of fabric with a pair of sharply focused binoculars. The sensation of the wide-angle agonizing clarity of natural knurdness was dulled by exhaustion.

A familiar face entered his field of vision and through some untapped reserve of energy set aside for being suave in front of important people—ie people who had already seen him fall apart and for whom there was absolutely no advantage in appearing suave in front of—he drew himself up to his full height, took the hand of the person to whom it the familiar face belonged and said “Ah. Lady Ramkin. Enchanting as ever. How are you finding the evening?”

“The sun is setting. I was thinking of heading out to the balcony.”

‘Balcony’ meant the roof of the building and the roof of the building meant his choice of where to go and how to get there. Through a great feat of will he closed his eyes for a couple of seconds and thought, running through the paths to actually get from the balcony to the roof of the house depending whether you wanted more secure footholds or handholds.

He opened his eyes. “That sounds lovely.”

When they actually did get to balcony, however, seeing that it was deserted, Havelock sat on the floor, back against a pillar.

“Are you tired? Feeling ill?”

The Assassin neither moved nor said anything.

The air was unusually clear and instead of the dramatic, sweeping, almost bloody crimson-orange of sunset through haze, yellow and lavender softly blended together like oil pastel into a sunset that felt like it was marking its voice, trying to learn the notes without disturbing the neighbors. A sunset that wouldn’t let the cello players in because they had shown up late.

It was just warm enough out to be comfortable. A spring-in-winter kind of day.

Sibyl looked out from the balcony across the rooftops. She had left school a few ago and had been gradually working a transformation on the house she had grown up in. The smell of sulfur was evident even from here, city blocks away. There were young women her age who people expected should be married. People reviewing their prospects with a degree of franticness. But she was a Ramkin and breathed easily in the knowledge that she didn’t have what she didn’t want and had nearly everything she did.

Her parents would have preferred if she behaved like most people, but they had only ever taken a limited interest in her life.

She was disturbed by the palpable distress her friend was in. It was like he’d been drowning and just pulled from the water.

‘Why do you feel this way?’ could be a useful question even if the answer was murky and muddied. But she didn’t ask it. The shifting sunlight turned the stone a color softer than gold.

She turned around to find Havelock laying out three tarot cards on the tiles in front of him. The knight of wands, the page of swords and the four of swords.

“I didn’t know you had tarot cards.”

“They’re my aunt’s.”

“Ah.” Sybil looked out “Does she know you have them?”

“No.”

“How is she?”

“Inebriated.”

“I thought she didn’t get drunk.”

“She’s only human. Mortal as any of us. She acts like she’s too clever to be subject to the effects of, well, the physical universe in general really. How are your parents?”

“I don’t understand them. You know that. They approve of you though. You’re properly respectable

“Oh dear. What have I done wrong.”

“Nothing.”

“Very funny.” He combed his fingers through his hair. “I feel like I can’t think. Like I’m doing everything I can but not doing it... wholeheartedly enough. I know I’m brilliant— That’s not— that’s just factually true... so it’s frustrating to know that... It feels so subject to chance.” Havelock glanced up briefly. “That made considerably more sense out loud than it did in my head.”

“I don’t think you’re meant to find making sense annoying but I think I can see how it might be.”

“Good. If we can maintain at least one level of not making sense we’ll be alright.”


End file.
